UNDERSTANDING OF THE TRANSITION TO PARENTHOOD.

The Importance of Gender in an Understanding of the Transition to Parenthood



The Importance of Gender in an Understanding of the Transition to Parenthood

Introduction

This paper is a review of the social and behavioral science research literature on the transition to the role of fatherhood. Adult and adolescent males undergo this transition within the context of dyadic relationships (either married, or unmarried couples; with resident or non-resident fathers). The male-female couples raise their children within a larger social and familial network of relatives, friends, and acquaintances. Indeed, intimate male-female relationships can be viewed as small social systems because they contain a structure, psychological orientation, and set of norms that guide their behavior. In addition, within intimate male-female relationships there is a division of labor, which is often influenced by gender. To the extent that core values are shared between males and females they are able to bond with each other. However, a major contemporary issue is that males and females are not sharing core values and are not bonding within relationships. In light of the social contexts within which one becomes a parent, it would be misleading to examine the dynamics of the transition to fatherhood without making reference to the styles of adjustment among fathers, along with other crucial social factors such as the child, the child's mother, and extended families.

Throughout the developmental stages of life, males and females experience critical changes in their perspectives and social roles as they progress from birth to old age. These attitudinal and behavioral changes generally involve growth and maturation into a new set of circumstances and adaptation into different social roles. In adapting to changing social roles, we learn new norms and modify our value system. The roles we play are adjusted over time or replaced as we transition from one stage to the next. The key stages of life involving significant transformation include going to school for the first time, leaving home, getting married, and having children (Barnhill et al., 1979: 74). Although there are cultural, gender and individual variations in our transition through the life cycles, we invariably proceed through a relatively orderly and predictable set of developmental stages. However, orderliness of life transitions are broken down by early parenthood, especially when it occurs before completing secondary school and acquiring marketable job skills. Still, while development through infancy and childhood has been researched extensively (Erikson, 1963: 98), the research community has revealed less knowledge about the complexities of the transition to adulthood, parenthood in particular (Bozett, 1985: 14).

Much of the research on the transition to parenthood focuses primarily on intact married couples having their first child (Belsky et al., 1985; Goldberg et al., 1985; Hobbs & Wimbush, 1977; Miller & Sollie, 1977: 1-114). Hobbs and Wimbush's research was one of the rare studies which examined the transition to parenthood among Black couples. In each of these studies, the effects of the first-time pregnancy and the introduction of the child on marital relations and individual maturation ...